‘Crime After Crime’: An Inspiring Tale of Abuse, Injustice and a Fight for Freedom

“Crime After Crime is a legal thriller, a genre that is built on suspense, intrigue and discovery.” – Yoav Potash

Those who end up in the unlawful clutches of an almighty and complicated American ‘justice system’ rarely get out with any sort of ease or swiftness. Even with a polished or tenacious defence lawyer, once inside, prisoners are usually in for the long haul. So was the case of Deborah Peagler whose harrowing journey was chronicled in Yoav Potash’s gripping 2011 vérité style documentary, Crime After Crime.

Crime After Crime

Amidst the stark landscape of Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, we find an unforgettable tale of a battered woman trapped inside the cemented walls of an unscrupulous justice system. At the core of Potash’s film is the shocking statistic that 80% of incarcerated women in America are survivors of some form of domestic violence, rape or abuse.

Potash uses facts and footage to break the battered women issue wide open, putting the spotlight on a luminous protagonist and a colourful cast of characters who work tirelessly to release her from the grip of an unlawful imprisonment. Emotionally affecting, the film reminds us of the power of art to critique the system, inspire hope and facilitate change.

Image from the The Diane L. Parker Educational Resource Fund

During the filming, Potash’s work inspired a grassroots movement that advocated not only for Deborah’s freedom, but also for victims of wrongful incarceration and domestic abuse across America. To help publicize, organize and channel that movement, Potash oversaw the establishment of a website, FreeDebbie.org, using footage to gain the attention of the media and founded a social justice campaign, Free From Abuse.

By the time of its release in 2011, only California had a law that allowed incarcerated survivors of abuse to petition the courts for their freedom. According to Free From Abuse, currently legislators and organizers in six states (Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York and Texas) have passed or are working to pass similar legislation. In New Jersey, Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg saw the film and responded within weeks by introducing a new legislation called the New Jersey Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (also known as Debbie’s Law).

When filming first began, no one knew exactly how Debbie’s story would unfold. The clues, twists and turns that emerge are at times shocking and frustrating, yet deeply moving. Without the use of a narrator or a script, Potash captures Peagler’s battle for freedom in real time as events unfold over a span of 5 ½ years. His film is a deftly constructed collage of interview clips, raw footage, archival photos, and on-screen text and graphics.

One of the key strengths of the film is Potash’s adept and poignant use of timing as he integrates each piece of the story within “black inter-titled” blocks. These cleverly delineate time (and space) while revealing the ups and downs that Peagler and her legal team face as the case unfolds. Each block of time is marked by years until the last 30 minutes, when the ticker speeds up with many twists and turns, building up to a whirlwind finale that leaves viewers both deflated and elated.

Crime After Crime was not an easy documentary to make. One of the biggest challenges in its creation was in Potash figuring out how he would gain access to filming inside the prison and, in turn, Peagler. He had no or little control over the unfolding of events or how the characters would perform. That he was able to carve out such an intimate and illuminating story about the events and characters that make up this story is a testament to his skill and vision as a filmmaker.

Laws (likely unconstitutional) made it nearly impossible for Potash to film inside the maximum-security prison. The California Department of Corrections does not allow media access to specific inmates – only to a group of inmates. Luckily, the legal team was able to skirt the issue by hiring Potash as their legal videographer. This gave him access to interviewing Peagler and to taping meetings with her lawyers. However, in order to capture Peagler’s other “insider” activities, he proposed to produce a short PBS documentary, Life on the Inside, that allowed him to film the activities in the prison’s church, work, and social programs — half of which Peagler led or participated in. This is a significant aspect of the story because during her incarceration she held one of the highest paying jobs in the prison system, led the gospel choir, earned two college degrees and taught other inmates to read and write.

Case Overview

In 1983, Peagler was sentenced to 25 years-to-life for her connection to the murder of Oliver Wilson, the charismatic, drug-dealing hustler boyfriend who had forced her into prostitution while still in high school and beat her with a bullwhip when she refused to comply.

While she never denied her involvement, her level of culpability remains murky. She didn’t do it herself, but led Oliver to the place where two Crips gang members from the neighbourhood beat and strangled him to death. Even though Peagler received $17,000 in life insurance after his death, most of the money went to Oliver’s mom while it also paid for the cost of an elaborate funeral. Nonetheless, the prosecution used this life insurance as evidence that she conspired to have Oliver killed for financial gain.

At the time, there was far less public awareness of domestic-violence issues. Deemed irrelevant and inadmissible by the courts, the abuse that Peagler suffered for so many years at the hands of Oliver was not presented at trial. The film goes beyond simply asking whether she served her “debt to society,” but to scrutinizing the circumstances of her life and the legality of her 20 plus years of incarceration. Under the Penal Code section and sentencing laws for voluntary manslaughter, she should have only served a maximum of 6 years in prison.

1975 Deborah Meets Oliver

Angela Harris speaking to reporters outside the Reagan State Building in LA. (Frank Stoltze/KPCC)

In the film’s first 20 minutes, Potash presents a potent narrative of a disturbing relationship. Debbie’s mother introduced Oliver to her when she was just 15. At first, Oliver seemed to be a kind and charming young man. He took her out on dates, giving her gifts, and acting like a father to her newborn daughter, Tikisha. One evening, Oliver told her he was going to take her out “somewhere special.” Instead, he took her to a donut shop where she met up with her future pimp’s other “girls.” Oliver had decided that it was time for Debbie to make money for him by prostituting herself. That night when she refused, he beat her repeatedly with his fists and kicked her until she was black and blue.

Fearing for her life, Debbie did Oliver’s bidding for the next six years, suffering severe abuse behind closed doors. Over the years, the abuse escalated. Oliver began beating Debbie with a bullwhip, isolating her and psychologically abusing her with insults, mind games, and death threats. She tried to escape the violence numerous times, but his beatings and death threats always forced her back — especially after she gave birth to her second daughter, Natasha.

1982 Deborah Leaves Oliver

In early 1982, when she learned that Oliver had sexually abused her eldest daughter, Tikisha, Debbie took her children and fled to her mother’s house. One day, Oliver came looking for her with a band of men armed with pistols and shotguns screaming death threats. Arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, the police released Oliver the next day. It was this final threat to her and her family’s lives that led to that fateful day in the park.

Image from Crime After Crime

1983 Prosecution

In 1983, a group known as Operation Hardcore prosecuted Debbie. A federally funded gang task force with a 100% conviction rate. They charged her with first-degree murder and threatened her with the death penalty. To avoid that sentence, Debbie entered a guilty plea so that she would “only” serve life in prison. Debbie never implicated her mother for her role in arranging the attack on Oliver Wilson.

“I sit in prison wondering was there a better way … was there a different way? Like today, I know there is … shelters and people… are available now. Where were those people then?” – Debbie Peagler

2002 A New Law

Still from Crime After Crime

When Debbie went to prison, the battered women movement was still in its infancy. Battered women shelters and restraining orders had only just begun. With committed activists, victims started coming out of the shadows to share their personal stories of abuse. As the years passed by, people in prison began talking about battered women syndrome. They even initiated a domestic violence program and group therapy. During a filmed session, viewers are confronted with an emotional retelling by one of Debbie’s co-female inmates:

“He used to beat me in front of his friends… he beat me until I was black and blue… and this was the only way I could ever get away from him.”

Joshua Safran, Deborah Peagler and Nadia Costa

Two decades after her incarceration, California became the first state with a law that allowed domestic violence cases to be re-opened. Despite this new law, the state did not provide these women with access to lawyers. In response, a new grassroots initiative, The Habeas Project began connecting women with attorneys who would take on their cases pro bono. This is when a pair of doggedly determined land-use attorneys, Joshua Safran and Nadia Costa (with the help of private investigator Bobby Buechler), stepped forward to take Peagler’s case.

Through their perseverance, her lawyers brought to light long-lost witnesses, new testimonies from the men who committed the murder and proof of perjured evidence. Their discoveries sent the case into the headlines and launched a movement for battered women with the unassuming Peagler at its helm. As the story unfolds, the audience also learns that Safran and Costa were inspired to take on her fight because both were victims of domestic abuse in childhood.

This reveals a level of compassion and humanity beyond just their role as lawyers while it also embeds them within the story as true advocates for this modern David and Goliath tale. It also helped to place Peagler’s story within the broader context of domestic violence. As Costa says, “it doesn’t just happen in South Central Los Angeles to young black women, it happens everywhere. It happened to me as a child and… as a young adult. All the time I was living in affluent communities and it was never stopped.”

To help navigate the complexity of Peagler’s legal battles, Safran animates a whiteboard by drawing a diagram that helps to explain the roles and process of the courts, parole board, District Attorney and Governor. At this stage, viewers understand the complexity but also experience a sense of optimism for Debbie’s future – that is, until the roller coaster ride of denied paroles, rejected Habeas petitions, a hidden memo, a broken promise and evidence of prosecutorial misconduct continue on as the years roll by into 2009.

2006 Deborah Serves Her 24th Year In Prison

By 2006, the Peagler’s case had transformed from a private legal brief by two attorneys into a public battle waged in headlines, TV news reports, and the court of public opinion. It’s at this point that Potash gives the audience a break from the distressing details of the legal battles with a prison visit from the musical activist group Arrested Development.

2007 Arrested Development Visits the Prison

As part of Bondage for Freedom’s None Of Us Are Free campaign, Potash persuaded Jamie Catto to travel to the prison to co-ordinate a “momentous musical stunt”with Peagler, her gospel choir of inmates and Arrested Development. The footage shows them recording the Solomon Burke gospel song (with such beautiful abandon) that is also a recorded as a music video message of solidarity for the Angola 3 imprisoned in Louisiana. The song and the video are a powerful artistic testament to the many individuals in America who have fallen through the cracks of the criminal justice system. It is in this moment that Peagler’s true character emerges as she holds her head high and advocates for others as she struggles to regain her freedom:

“My case should matter to people outside of California, because my case isn’t about me any more. It’s about so many other people. I represent a larger part of the women’s prison population.” – Debbie Peagler

2010 A Legacy of Quietly Epic Proportions

While there is plenty more shocking events to come in later scenes, Potash says in an Indiewiere article, that the song footage “foreshadows the possibility that it may be the court of public opinion – rather than the Los Angeles Superior Court – that can set Deborah free.”

Without telling the whole story, the utter perversity of Debbie’s lengthy incarceration is revealed when private investigator, Bobby Buechler, discovers an internal memorandum from the LA District Attorney’s office. As it is explained on the Crime After Crime website, the memo, written in 1983 by a head deputy at the time, begins by stating, “the trial deputy and myself no longer feel that the death penalty is appropriate in this case.” The revelation of the illegal suppression of this memo for 25 years comes like a hard punch to the gut.

Shockingly, this crucial fact was never shown to Peagler’s defence team. “Instead, the prosecutor threatened to pursue the death penalty against Debbie, wrongfully coercing her to accept a “deal” to life in prison.” Today, Frederick P. Horn, the trial prosecutor who handled Debbie’s case, is a Superior Court judge in Orange County.

Although criticized for “sentimental shots” of nature scenes in the film, I love how Potash uses these images to infuse the staleness of the legal processes and the blandness of the prison environment with poetic interruptions: Deep red flowers shifting in the wind, a crow toying with an object on the prison roof, and road kill as it lays outside of a rigid metal fence. In a film that is fraught with tension as the clock ticks down for Peagler, these small moments of beauty and contemplation, provide much needed solitude and relief.

With the filming starting in 2002, this documentary spans almost a decade as the protagonist fights for her freedom. It is a fitting tribute to an unexpected spokesperson for 100,000 female victims of domestic violence incarcerated across the country. Her story is one worth of watching — but grab lots of tissues. Despite all of the adversity and harsh realities that we must confront, throughout the film, Peagler remains a model of grace, modesty and inspiration. It’s a legal thriller with a bitter-sweet ending that can be best described as quietly epic.

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